Let’s Go Surfin’…Now?

It’s November, with an average air temperature hovering near freezing. Most years we’ve had snow by now. But instead of waxing the cross-country skis area sportsmen are bringing out the boards and wetsuits to surf Lake Michigan.

Traditionally November is one of the stormiest months of the year. We think of gale force winds and images of fallen trees and power lines come to mind. After all it was with 52 knot winds and 10 foot waves on November 10, 1975 that the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald went down in Lake Superior.

But the brisk winds of near winter are not all bad. For the local surf enthusiats it’s the weather they’ve been waiting all year for. This year, we caught a glimpse of these dedicated few at the mouth of the Platte River near Frankfort. It was 41 degrees and we’d tried our best to enjoy the fall festival in Frankfort, but were driven away by the bitter cold wind and snow flakes that had begun to appear. I dragged the family out to see the pumpkin-chucking downtown, but we quickly returned to our car to escape the unfortunate weather. Unfortunate for us. But exactly what the kite-boarders and surfers were looking for. We heard they were practicing down at Platte so we took a chance and caught some of the action from the car.

Here are a few photos taken from the heated comfort of our sedan.

Nearly one month later they were at it again, but with much better weather. On November 13th these adverturous surfers were in Frankfort catching waves right off the pier. Check out this video from MyNorth.com. They get a first hand report as to why Frankfort, Michigan in November is a great time of year for surfing.